At the prize giving of the 2013 Western Cape Indoor Championships held this weekend in Cape Town, the SA Archery Federation President, Selwyn Moskovitz, announced that despite a lack of funds to prepare a team for delivery to the National Olympic Committee, SASCOC, that the plans established in 2012 to prepare for the 2016 Olympics was well underway.“While it will be up to SASCOC whether we compete at the Olympics and based on the selection criteria we agree on, we have been working hard to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. At this stage we have four candidates who have exceeded the World Archery Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) and six other possible candidates. Much of this has been due to the hard work done by Prof Van Warmelo who heads the federations Olympic Commission and the continued efforts of our athletes”, he said.

“As part of our Olympic plan and preparation, our top four recurve archers will be competing at the Continental Championships in Egypt next month”, he added.

This will be the last time that the federation would be able to field a funded team to an international event as the primary source of funding (the Lottery Board) has not opened the doors for federations to apply for funding, stating that only clubs and schools may apply under the sports sector.

“As a minor sport comprising of 100% unpaid volunteers, it is very difficult for us to secure funding” he said, encouraging clubs to apply for funding from the Lottery for both their own needs as well as funding to support their top athletes for major events.

“Within the next year we will need new equipment for our Olympic candidates and we will simply not have the funds”, he added.

Moskovitz expressed concern that the decision by the Lottery Board may result in the federation not being able to send our athletes to the World Championships or the Continental Qualifier to earn a slot for the country at the Olympics.

Many of the successful projects that are underway will start to fizzle out due to a lack of funding, including the outreach and schools program that has seen over 30,000 black kids introduced to our sport and which has identified a number of youth who have gone on to earn provincial and national Colours and even competed overseas.

“Our Olympic Commission, Gold Squad, athletes and coaches have put in a huge amount of effort over the past two years. Unless the clubs secure funding, this effort and planning over the past decade would be wasted and we will be in a tough position to provide SASCOC with team delivery in 2016.

The standard of archery in South Africa is high with our archers returning home with medals from five out of eight World Archery Federation Grand Prix events and International Championships in the past two years.

This type of achievement is not possible without financial support for preparation, equipment and travel. The move by the Lottery Board to exclude National Federations from applying for funding will result in those who can afford to compete, as oppose to those who qualify, being selected”, he said.

“I find it difficult to understand how we can be expected to grow and deliver teams for major events when our sport is neglected to this extent”, he concluded.